JeeLabs LCD Plug with Character Display

Description

This product is a bundle combining a JeeLabs LCD Plug with an LCD Character Screen. The LCD Plug alone can be found here. The page will allow you to choose from one of four LCD character displays. The LCD Plug is a small board which uses an MCP23008 I2C expander chip to connect to standard LCD displays. The expander chip runs at 3.3 volts but jumpers are provided to run the LCD at either 3.3 volts or the power input pin voltage, which for most users is going to be 4.5 to 6 volts. The board has surface mount parts completely assembled but no headers are mounted. At least the power jumper pads must be soldered up to use with an LCD. The board, and LCD, may have headers assembled with male and female mating headers, or just soldered together with male headers as shown in the photos. Because the form factor of LCD displays is somewhat large in relationship to a JeeNode these are most convenient with a six pin cable extender. The code for the LCD Plug uses the Arduino LCD library, and modifies it to run over the output expander. This is accomplished with the JeeLib I2C class which allows I2C communication on any JeeNode port. The code including an Arduino demo example are included in the JeeLabs ports library. The LCD Plug need not be used on a JeeNode board. It is also useful as general-purpose, I2C LCD driver. The MCP23008 chip runs from 2-5.5 volts so it will accommodate a wide range of microcontroller systems. The SDA and SCL lines should be connected to the DIO and AIO respectively. The Modern Device version of the LCD Plug includes some headers, and a six pin extender cable.